August 11, 2006

You Can't Have Terrorism Without Terror

terrorism

Systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective.

The terrorists can’t generate their “general climate of fear” without help.

But Bush’s Republicans hoped the raid would yield political gains.

“I’d rather be talking about this than all of the other things that Congress hasn’t done well,” one Republican congressional aide told AFP on condition of anonymity because of possible reprisals.

“Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big,” said another White House official, who also spoke on condition of not being named, adding that some Democratic candidates won’t “look as appealing” under the circumstances.

It's not even clear to me why they would think this makes them look good, or Democrats look bad.

I haven't, in fact, been worrying much about terrorism in the last 5 years (or the last >30 years before that, for that matter). But if I had, then come election time, perhaps I would look back over the last 5 years and say to myself, "what have the last 5 years had in common, governmentally speaking?"